HISP-C 492 Readings in Catalan for Graduate Students ( 3 credits)

Prerequisite: HISP-C 491 or consent of the Instructor

Modern Catalan literature constitutes an extraordinary cultural event that, for multiple reasons, has remained marginal amidst the great European literary traditions. Catalan literature and language have played a central role in the political re-emergence of Catalonia as “a nation without a state.” Given these historical conditions, the Catalan literary tradition is a particularly productive space to explore the always-puzzling relations between literature and politics.

The course will survey the panorama of Catalan literature from the nineteenth century to the present, with particular emphasis on contemporary literature. Readings will exemplify all important periods (Renaixença, modernisme, noucentisme, avantguarda, postguerra, postmodernitat) and will include novels, short stories, poetry and plays.

The course will be taught in Catalan. Students who have not taken Catalan should seek the consent of the instructor. This course can fulfill the elective 300/400 level requirement for the Spanish major.

#8439 8:00A-9:15A TR GA 0005 Prof. Edgar Illas

Note: Above class meets with HISP-C 450, HISP-X 491 and HISP-C 450

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HISP-C 550: Catalan Literature(3 Credits)

#30736 8:00A–9:15A TR GA 0005 Professor Edgar Illas

Modern Catalan literature constitutes an extraordinary cultural event that, for multiple reasons, has remained marginal amidst the great European literary traditions. Catalan literature and language have played a central role in the political re-emergence of Catalonia as “a nation without a state.” Given these historical conditions, the Catalan literary tradition is a particularly productive space to explore the always-puzzling relations between literature and politics.

The course will survey the panorama of Catalan literature from the nineteenth century to the present, with particular emphasis on contemporary literature. Readings will exemplify all important periods (Renaixença, modernisme, noucentisme, avantguarda, postguerra, postmodernitat) and will include novels, short stories, poetry and plays.

The course will be taught in Catalan. Students who have not taken Catalan should seek the consent of the instructor. This course can fulfill the elective 300/400 level requirement for the Spanish major.

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HISP-P 491 Elementary Portuguese for Graduate Students (3 credits)

#9052 9:05A– 9:55A MTWR SY 0013 Professor Vania Castro

An accelerated Portuguese language course. Emphasis on oral communication with grammar and vocabulary taught in context. The cultures of Brazil and the Portuguese-speaking world will be presented using interactive activities, songs videos, discussions, and short readings.

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HISP-P 492 Reading Portuguese for Graduate Students (3 credits)

#2914 11:15A–12:30P TR WH 104 Professor Luciana Namorato

This course’s goal is to refine students’ abilities in reading, writing, and speaking Portuguese. This semester, we will focus on the concept of HUMOR in Brazilian arts and culture. We will examine political cartoons, graphic novels, jokes, popular sayings, and TV sketches in search for a “Brazilian sense of humor”. We will also read newspaper articles, short stories, poems, and plays with a focus on their comical and satirical aspects. Students will be introduced to the basics of literary appreciation, and will practice the four types of essays: descriptive, narrative, expository, and persuasive. Taught in Portuguese.

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HISP-P 512: Brazil: The Cultural Context (3 Credits)

#30359 1:00P–2:15P TR BH 231 Professor Luciana Namorato

Taught in English, this course will survey issues specific to Brazilian culture, from the “discovery” of Brazil in 1500 to present day. We will examine issues related to race, gender, politics, and popular culture, including, but not limited to: Brazil’s contemporary social and political concerns (urban violence, racial tension, and migration); the development of the country’s main musical styles (Tropicália, Bossa Nova, MPB, Samba, Funk, and Rap); representations of Brazil throughout the world, in visual arts, film, and other media.

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HISP-P 570: Poetry in Portuguese: Twentieth-Century Lusophone Poetry (3 Credits)

#30351 1:00P–2:15P MW SY003 Professor Estela Vieira

This course surveys a golden age of poetry in Portuguese: the twentieth century. We will read a diverse selection of poems and authors from Portugal, Brazil, and Portuguese-speaking African countries. From the modernist movement at the beginning of the century to contemporary practices, poetry and poets—many with notable international projection—have had a tremendous impact on cultural and political discourses both inside their countries and transnationally. In the course, we explore the ways in which poetic forms frame, interrogate, and engage with political identity, philosophical inquiry, and aesthetic understanding while gaining a deeper knowledge of the evolving literary traditions and formal developments in lyric.

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HISP-S 511: Spanish Syntactic Analysis (3 Credits)

#30338 2:30P–3:45P TR BH 235 Professor Patricia Matos Amaral

This course provides a graduate-level introduction to the study of syntactic analysis, with a focus on Spanish. The goals of the course are to provide students with: (i) analytical skills and an ability to develop a syntactic argumentation; (ii) an understanding of the basic premises of different perspectives of syntactic theory, and (iii) the tools to identify and begin to explore research topics in Spanish (and more broadly Romance) linguistics. The course will introduce basic notions of syntactic analysis and discuss their theoretical grounding. In the last two weeks of the course we will discuss specific papers focusing on particular phenomena that are classic topics in the syntax of Spanish. The choice of these papers will partly depend on the current interests of students. In this section of the course students will have the opportunity to compare different approaches to the syntactic analysis of Spanish.

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HISP-S 609: Spanish Phonology II (3 Credits)

#30343 1:00P–2:15P TR GA 0005 Professor Erik Willis

This course is based on laboratory approaches to phonetics and phonological processes in Spanish. A significant portion of the class will be devoted to perception research to identify and understand variation and processes. The course will employ a collaborative approach to the creation of research questions and instruments.

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HISP-S 716: Seminar: Second Language Acquistion

Variable Title: L2 Pragmatics: Language Learning & Teaching (3 Credits)

#30349 11:15A–12:30P TR WH 002 Professor César Félix-Brasdefer

Requirement: S515 (Spanish SLA or equivalent SLA course), S508 (Introduction to Hispanic Pragmatics or equivalent). Students who have not taken a pragmatics course (S508, S612 or equivalent), contact the instructor for permission.

The aim of this seminar is to investigate current issues in second language pragmatics (L2 pragmatics) in foreign and second language contexts. The course will begin with an overview of basic concepts in pragmatics. The course will focus on two main topics, second language learning/pragmatic development and the role of instruction in learning L2 pragmatics. We will review theoretical models of pragmatics learning and development with attention to learners in various learning contexts, including the pragmatics of heritage speakers. In addition to pragmatics research in the FL classroom, this course will survey the literature on pragmatic development in study abroad contexts, with a focus on learners of Spanish in a variety of study abroad settings. Some of the topics that will be covered in this course include the construct of pragmatic competence, pragmatic input, learners’ individual characteristics and learning contexts, and research methods in L2 pragmatics. And given current work on the effectiveness of pedagogical intervention in the classroom (implicit & explicit teaching), we will examine current issues of the teaching and assessment of L2 pragmatics. Students will learn to design pedagogical (research-based) activities for teaching speech acts in the Spanish FL classroom. Evaluation: Students will write an annotated bibliography, one exam, weekly short assignments, design a pedagogical activity on the teaching of L2 pragmatics, and a research paper based on a current topic related to language learning/pragmatic development or instruction of L2 pragmatics. Class participation of assigned readings in expected. Students can focus on the production or comprehension of one speech act, L2 implicature, forms of address, discourse markers, L2 pragmatic variation, L2 discourse (interactional competence), among other current topics. Students will present their research papers at the end of the semester.

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HISP-S 568: 19th & 20th Century Spanish American Literature (3 Credits)

#30339 9:30A–10:45A TR GA 0005 Professor Alejandro Mejías-López

This course covers the literary production in Spanish America during the constitution of the new republics, from Independence to the first decades of the 20th century. We will study both the most canonical texts of the period as well as lesser studies texts within their aesthetic, historical, social, and ideological contexts. Special attention will be paid to current theoretical and critical approaches and research areas in 19th-century Latin American literary and cultural studies. Topics will include: aesthetic trends and literary canon creation; relationship between literature, nation-building, and state formation; issues of class, race, gender, and sexuality; literature and modernity; regional vs. global cultural production and consumption; nationalism, pan-Latin Americanism, and imperialism. Class will be conducted entirely in Spanish.

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HISP-S 578: 20th & 21st Century Spanish American Literature (3 Credits)

#30340 11:15A–12:30P TR BH 016 Professor Jonathan Risner

This course aims to expose students to general trends and genres (novels, theatrical works, and poetry) in Latin American literature during the 20th and 21st-centuries. The course will depart from avant-garde poetry by Vicente Huidobro and conclude with an examination of works by contemporary writers, such as Horacio Castellanos Moya, Nona Fernández, and Antonio Ortuño. Readings will generally be paired with a theoretical text as a means of placing into dialogue literature and theory in order to hone one’s command of different tools of analysis.

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HISP-S 618: Topics in Spanish Medieval Literature - El Mester de Clerecía y el Libro de Buen Amor (3 Credits)

#30346 2:30P–3:45P TR WH 204 Professor Ryan Giles

The first part of this course will examine the emergence, development, and impact of a thirteenth-century poetic school known as the Mester de Clerecía. Apart from the spiritual, hagiographic works of Gonzalo de Berceo, heroic texts concerning legends such as that of Alexander the Great formed part of this movement. Also important were works that reflected Jewish and Islamic cultures on the Peninsula, and in particular the anonymous Poema de Yusuf (composed in Aljamiado, or Iberian Romance written in Arabic characters) and the Proverbios morales of the Rabi Sem Tob. The second part of the course will examine the relationship between these texts and the fourteenth-century Libro de buen amor (LBA), a work which builds on, adapts, and subversively transforms conventions and traditions inherited from these earlier poets.

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HISP-S 659: Topics Colonial Spanish American Literture

Variable Title: Conquest, Colonialism, and Contemporary Mexico (3 Credits)

#30347 4:00P–6:30P T BH 018 Professor Kathleen Myers

Recent scholarship in Hispanic literatures increasingly studies the relationships between race and ethnicity and their roles within nation-building, empire, and contemporary transnational contexts. This course will focus on the origins of many of these terms, ideologies, and practices in Spain’s conquest and colonialization of peoples living in the Americas. As the conquest and colonization processes unfolded, ideas about non-European ‘others’ and territorial/production rights influenced the creation of laws, institutions, and socio-cultural practices of colonialism. We will focus primarily on the role of indigenous populations in colonial Mexico and how early conquest narratives and colonial institutions reveal both the ideas about and the practices of empire-building, colonialism, race identity, and the emergence of modernity. We will pair early colonial texts with modern and contemporary Mexican essays, textbooks, and literary works in order to better understand the deep and ongoing reinterpretation of key notions about “conquest,” “colonialism,” and “race” in Mexico. In the process, we will historicize these key concepts, and reflect on their usage in contemporary scholarship. Students will be encouraged to apply the methodology we develop to their own research areas. HISP-S 695: Graduate Colloquium - Marxist Theory: Culture and Politics (3 Credits)

#13331 4:00P–6:30P M WH 204 Professor Andrés Guzmán

This course provides a sustained engagement with Marxist theories of culture and politics. Classic texts by Marx (and Engels), such as The German Ideology, “On the Jewish Question,” “The Communist Manifesto,” The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, and Capital Vol. I, will provide some of the conceptual foundations the development and reinterpretations of which we will trace throughout the rest of the semester. Among the topics we will cover are the logic(s) of dialectical materialism; the commodity form and cultural production; the relationship (or lack thereof) between art, politics and political economy; theories of the commons; the politics of place and space; feminist, anti-, post- and decolonial readings of Marx; and contending theories of the subject.

Among the other theorists we will study are Georg Lukács, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Henri Lefebvre, Fredric Jameson, David Harvey, José Revueltas, Bolívar Echeverría, Álvaro García Linera, Frantz Fanon, Kristen Ross, Wendy Brown, Silvia Federici, Kathi Weeks, Colectivo Situaciones, Jacques Rancère, Alain Badiou, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, and Kojin Karatani.

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HISP-S 695: Graduate Colloquium

Variable Title: War and The Political (3 Credits)

#30348 4:00P–6:30P W WH 204 Professor Edgar Illas

This course will analyze a variety of theoretical approaches to the question of war and politics. We will explore one fundamental hypothesis, namely that war is an ontological event, that is, an event, or perhaps the event, that produces new social orders of being. Thus, rather than studying theories of war from a political science or a military perspective, our approach will be based on theoretical reflections about the continuation and also the gap between conflict and political order. The course, in other words, will revolve around a series of notions that try to conceptualize the abyssal transition from contentious disorder to stabilized order. We will start by examining classic theorizations of war, from Heraclitus all the way to Francisco Vitoria’s linkage between theology and politics in the concept of just war and to Hobbes’s connection between the war-of-all-against-all and the State. But our main focus will be on contemporary notions, which will include, among others: Heidegger’s polemos, Carl Schmitt’s nomos, Pierre Clastres’s societies-for-war, Deleuze and Guattari’s war machine, Derrida’s force of law, and Carlo Galli’s global war.

This last notion of global war points at the relevance of our topic. The fact that globalization has materialized as an endless state of exception and conflict has made it all the more urgent to think on the ontological function of war. The theoretical constellation of our course will not necessarily enable us to devise the possibility of peace, but at least it can help us dissipate the Clausewitzian “fog of war” that seems to define our global condition.

Assignments will consist of short compositions, one class presentation, and one final paper.

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